BROUHAHA RHYTHM From the Cradle of Liberty to the City of Angels
Has it been four years already? Good grief. It seems like just yesterday I was watching Looney Tunes and eating Cocoa Pebbles straight out of the box. I think it’s a sign I’m not quite ready to grow up — because that’s exactly what I was doing yesterday. I mean, sure, I’ve been living on my own for a good portion of the past four years, but in a relatively structured environment, with plenty of external financial support (thanks, Mom and Dad). To say that college is a better approximation of real life than high school would be like saying a defective toy boat is superior to a working one as an approximation of the RMS Titanic. Yes, it’s technically more accurate, but there really isn’t a substitute for the genuine article.
THEATER REVIEW A-M-A-Z-I-N-G
The MIT Musical Theater Guild is performing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee as their spring show, and this production is nothing short of phenomenal. Wisecracks about the unwieldy name aside, the Guild has put their best foot forward with Spelling Bee, and the result is a must-see.
THEATER REVIEW Romeo and Juliet takes new shape in old Verona
The MIT Shakespeare Ensemble performed Romeo and Juliet — at least, an interpretation of it — a few weeks ago, and for those who missed out, it only seems fair to share all that was unconventional about the production. To be perfectly blunt, this is not your high school’s time-updated, boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-lead-roles, by-the-book production. Not even close.
A night in at the movies
Hosting a good double feature, like assembling a good mix tape, is an art form. Sure, you could theoretically pick any two movies based on random selection or convenience and watch them together, but if you’re going to sit down with your friends and spend four to five hours staring at the same screen together, you might as well take a little extra time to plan. You could take any of several different approaches in picking which movies to watch and what order to watch them in, depending on the situation.
THEATRE REVIEW A grab bag of 30 bite-size treats
The MIT Dramashop’s production of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind opened and closed this past weekend. If the title of the show strikes you as suspiciously familiar, it’s because Dramashop also put forward a production of Too Much Light in 2009.
A diamond in the rough, miles underground
Seemingly in defiance of all logical conventions of game development, a computer game called <i>Minecraft</i> is quickly gaining popularity. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a big deal — statistically speaking, some games have to do well. What makes <i>Minecraft</i> unusual is that it’s still in development, with a dev team of approximately one. With some exaggeration — the core gameplay idea comes from <i>Infiniminer</i> by Zachtronic Industries, and the audio and art assets have their own designers — <i>Minecraft</i> is designed and programmed by Markus Persson and his company Mojang Specifications.
Power Gig shakes up the rhythm genre
Seven45 Studios released <i>Power Gig: Rise of the SixString</i> released October 19, an indie developer’s first toe–dip into the rhythm game swimming pool. By far the most intriguing aspect of <i>Power Gig</i> is the revolutionary use of a bona fide electric guitar as the primary controller for guitar gameplay, a first at time of release with some serious implications.
THEATER REVIEW Swords, storms, and (bloody) eyeballs!
The MIT Shakespeare Ensemble’s production of King Lear opened last weekend. <i>King Lear</i>, considered one of Shakespeare’s finest tragedies, starts with an ill-conceived brownnosing competition and ends, unsurprisingly, in death. Lots and lots of death.
Harmonix releases Rock Band 3
Harmonix Music Systems’ newest rhythm game releases today. Gamers eagerly awaiting the release of <i>Polka Band</i> will be tragically disappointed to know that the accordion–fest they had hoped for is still a long time coming. In the meantime, they’ll have to make do with the new <i>Rock Band 3</i>.
BROUHAHA RHYTHM Fifteen minutes of being near someone famous
Being the film-inclined person that I am, I’m fortunate enough to have friends that likewise enjoy watching movies and will let me know when nifty movie events happen. So naturally, I eventually caught wind, albeit at very short notice, of the Boston Film Festival that happened last weekend and decided on a whim to hop out after class on Friday and go to my first film premiere.
Bam! Pow! Comic Con!
The New York Comic Con drew thousands of fans of nerd/geek culture in all 31 flavors to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan last weekend. The largest such convention on the East Coast, the NYCC this year shared space with the New York Anime Festival, making the attendance even larger and more diverse. The guest of honor for this year’s NYCC was Marvel Comics titan Stan Lee, while Japanese voice actress and singer Minori Chihara was the guest of honor for the NYAF.
It’s a good thing laughter is the best medicine
Oh, stand-up comedy, you sultry minx. I’d always admired you from afar, watching your constantly growing harem of intrepid men and women perform in your name. Those whom you graced with your muse-like powers constantly amazed me, but I never even dared to hope to dream to imagine of even thinking of you as my mistress. Everything changed when one of your favored disciples appeared to train me in your mysterious ways, and I at last slowly stepped into your sphere of influence. Though I am yet a novice in your seductive ways, I consider myself unspeakably fortunate to even occasionally be in your cool embrace.
Playing games with metaphors
If you had told me five years ago that I would one day be interested in designing video games for a living, I would probably have freaked out that some crazy person claiming to be from MIT was trying to tell me information about my future, then laughed hysterically with skepticism. Back then, my interest in video games was almost exclusively as a player, and not an especially good one, at that. I barely even owned any video games growing up, and my awareness of the development process was limited to channel-surfing into X-Play occasionally and wondering to myself who those faceless people were that produced these parent-terrifying time sinks.
How not to get around MIT
The new fall semester approaches, bringing with it new fashions, new television seasons, and new freshmen wearing the latest fashions they saw on television. Having been a freshman recently enough to remember all of the embarrassing missteps I made (except for the ones I can’t remember), it seems appropriate at this juncture to share the golden wisdom I’ve accumulated (both karats of it) with all of you newcomers while reader interest is still running on morbid curiosity.
BROUHAHA RHYTHM It’s hot, humid, and stormy; must be summer
Six semesters in, and I’m only now spending a summer at MIT. I’d heard tales that unlike the brutally cruel winters of New England, Boston summers were actually fairly reasonable as far as climate was concerned. I can’t remember where I heard it, but I’ve decided that whoever told me so was clearly suffering from heat-induced pathological lying. Oh, sure, it’s not so bad anymore, but summer is summer no matter how you slice it, and summer can be downright uncomfortable on physical, emotional, and meteorological levels.
Crisis on multiple majors
Well, that’s it for junior year. Grades are in, sighs of relief have been released and blood pressure is back down. Yet a single understanding hangs over my head like an incontinent pigeon: in a matter of months, I’ll be a college senior. High-pitched, hyperventilated screams of panic abound. It’s not just the looming graduate school or reality, or the fact that I still don’t know which one it’s going to be. It’s not my inability to decide what I want to do or why, either. Nor is it the knowledge that many of my best mentor figures are going off to do with confidence aplenty the very things I’m panicking about. It’s...well, actually, I’m not entirely sure what it is, but it most certainly isn’t any of the above. No, sir, most definitely not one of those.
BROUHAHA RHYTHM Mapping out the Friend Zone
I was watching a movie with some friends the other night when the topic of a woman’s “friend zone” came up. Presumably, the Friend Zone is a Bermuda Triangle-like region from which there is no exit, inside which a male is considered a non-romantic entity, like a brother or a pet rock. I’ve never believed in the Friend Zone, although I suppose it’s only fair to disclaim that my experiences may differ from others’. Maybe it does exist, and I’ve simply never been placed in it, but I haven’t been quite vain enough to assume something like that since I was 15 — it seems much more likely that it simply hasn’t come into my mind as important.
BROUHAHA RHYTHM Visions of nerds dancing in my head
I like to dance. It’s basically the only exercise I get, and I get to meet all sorts of interesting people outside of MIT. Don’t get me wrong, I realize that there are plenty of opportunities around campus to mingle, but coordinated shouting at movie screens can only get you so acquainted with the people around you. I don’t even care all that much about what kind of dancing I’m doing — club dancing, ballroom dancing, I’ll even Michael Jackson dance if the opportunity arises, objections from bystanders notwithstanding. After the past three weeks, though, given that I can count the muscles in my legs and feet based on the individual types of soreness they’re experiencing, it’s become apparent that such a thing as too much dancing does exist.
THEATER REVIEW Evil Dead: The Musical is a must-see
The MIT Musical Theatre Guild is currently putting on <i>Evil Dead: The Musical</i>, based on the Evil Dead franchise from Sam Raimi. Personally, I’m somewhat ambivalent regarding the “post-modern” musical, the show that is aware that it’s a musical and tries too hard to draw attention to that fact. My biggest complaint is that these musicals seem almost lazily written, with the occasional self-referential joke used to fill in wherever an in-universe one can’t be found. That’s not the case with <i>Evil Dead</i>. Rather, <i>Evil Dead</i> represents what a postmodern musical would look like with everyone involved — the songwriter, lyricist, book writer, and the characters — were wholly dedicated to making the show as self-aware as possible, and doing so stylistically rather than attempting to be ironic about it. The result is a show that revels hilariously in its horror movie roots as it deconstructs the genre at the same time. Combined with MTG’s remarkably talented, very B-movie execution, <i>Evil Dead: The Musical</i> is conceivably the most fun and entertaining show I’ve seen on campus.
Cinema in the Third Dimension
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the resurgence of feature films being presented in 3-D. On the one hand, it’s probably the most sensible response to the demand by moviegoers for novel and interesting cinema experiences, as the witty dialogue and compelling character-driven narrative of films like <i>Bounty Hunter</i> (unfortunately not the Boba Fett biopic I was hoping for) doesn’t seem to be cutting it, for some reason. On the other hand, I’ve always enjoyed being removed from the cinema experience — not in the sense of being kicked out by ushers, but of being an impartial observer who can relate to the characters on the screen (sometimes) without having to inhabit their world. <i>300</i> was cool, but I think I’d feel a self-conscious need to work out more (or at least shower) if I saw Gerard Butler’s sweaty pecs popping out of the screen at me.
BROUHAHA RHYTHM Rocking out with Ryanhood
A few weeks ago, I had the chance to hang out with one of my favorite bands. My friends can attest to how much of a fan I am of acoustic guitar duo Ryanhood, probably while rolling their eyes and sighing. As it happens, I’m not the only person in the Greater Boston-Cambridge metropolitan area who considers himself a devotee of the band, which recently had a show in the area. Caitlin Mason and Chris Chiampa in Malden, unable to make it to the concert in Boston on March 6, opened her apartment to Ryanhood the next day for some Beatles: Rock Band with band members Ryan Green and Cameron Hood. Luckily for me, a few other fans got to come along for the ride, myself included.
BROUHAHA RHYTHM Rain, rain, go away
What Boston rain lacks in intensity, it seems determined to make up for in persistence. Even if downpours are few and far between around here, three straight days of halfhearted rain will turn a grassy field into a swamp and a sidewalk into an archipelago of vaguely connected islands. Avoiding pneumonia being the reasonably high priority that it is, after submitting psets on time and a full eight minutes of sleep every night, it only seems intelligent to dress appropriately for the occasional minor flood.
How to ruin your three-day weekend
When you spend as much time indoors as an MIT student during a Massachusetts winter, cabin fever isn’t the only ailment that’s likely to break down your immune system’s barricades. Just the other week, several staffers at <i>The Tech</i>, including me, were beset by some of the nasty bugs that have been floating around campus as of late.
The ethical <br />merry-go-round broke down
The other night, I was with some friends and watching a Looney Tunes marathon (3 DVDs from four-disc set, $3 at the thrift store), when the question arose of why we, one of many generations who grew up on cartoons, aren’t more messed up than we are. What went on television when we were young would have today’s parents up in arms and at the doorsteps of the production companies before you could say “That’s all, folks!”
Brouhaha Rhythm
I’ve never been very good at grocery shopping. For one thing, I’m constantly snacking, which means that walking down the chips and cookies aisle is just asking to load up on more munchies. For another, there’s so much variety in products that I can’t tell what’s inexpensive and what’s a ripoff. Music and movie shopping are easy by comparison — anything under fifteen dollars is a bargain (except perhaps <i>Plan 9 From Outer Space</i>), anything under five dollars is a steal — but groceries are a different beast altogether. Even considering that I’d watched <i>Supermarket Sweep </i>as a child, I was much more interested in the “run like a maniac around the supermarket” than the expected retail prices of anything. For instance, the Oreos at Shaw’s are in yellow-tag Purgatory, meaning that it’s always the same price every time I go, and seemingly have been for the past three years. Whether that means they’re actually never on sale or perpetually on sale, I leave to you to decide.
Brouhaha Rhythm
I’m not precisely sure when the word “awesome” was first used to describe something indefinably spectacular and/or amazing, but it seems as if in recent years, it’s gone from the upgraded, superlative version of “cool” (itself a reissue of “groovy”) to the heavily-used catch-all adjective of our generation. I don’t have anything against the word “awesome” in and of itself, but I do have to wonder at what point we stopped demanding more than “it’s awesome” as justification for holding something in high regard.
THEATER REVIEW Side Show Puts Singers On Display
The MIT Musical Theater Guild opened their <i>Side Show</i> (book and lyrics by Bill Russell, music by Henry Krieger) last weekend, and in keeping with a long-standing sideshow tradition, offered an experience that was different and unforgettable. Of course, the metaphor collapses when you realize that, contrary to being the stuff of nightmares, MTG’s <i>Side Show</i> is not only enjoyable but is one of those rare musicals that elicits drama without resorting to character death (not that there’s anything wrong with that, Mr. Whedon) or <i>deux ex machina</i>.
Brouhaha Rhythm
If you asked me what possibly could have compelled me to stay up until five in the morning to trudge through Cambridge for a Black Friday sale, I would have given you exactly two reasons. One is the age-old excuse, “my friends were doing it.” The other is that I managed to justify it to my nerd self by going to the electronics store first. A few DVDs, a set of Rock’em Sock’em Robots, and more self-restraint than any human should ever have to exercise later, here I am pondering the significance of the experience.
Brouhaha Rhythm
In last week’s edition of “Frivolous Dissertations on Breakfast,” in which I discussed my thoughts on the ideal cereal shape, it occurred to me that one edition simply wasn’t big enough to contain the sheer mass of frivolity on the subject that I wanted to share. More than that, it seemed terribly prejudiced of me to assume that cereal was the only breakfast food worth talking about. After all, non-college students eat breakfast, too (I think) and if I expect to be taken seriously in debates on the subject of breakfast, I should have an informed opinion on more than just the issues that matter to me.
Brouhaha Rhythm
The idea of the “frivolous conversation about everyday subjects”, experienced by all and popularized by sitcoms, remains one of the few ways in which we can connect with new acquaintances and sometimes complete strangers without being invasive or sketchy. Just yesterday, I briefly discussed Cheetos and dental hygiene with the lady next to me in line at the pizza parlor. Several months back, it was carbonated drinks with Ingrid the Shaw’s Cashier. Last week, the <i>pièce de résistance</i> was an interchange at length over bagels and cake on the subject of breakfast food, with cereal (specifically cold and served with milk) as the centerpiece.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday of the year. For one thing, it takes place during my favorite season — I grew up in a heavily forested area of Pennsylvania, and seeing entire mountainsides change color is pretty stunning for me now and positively mind–boggling to an eight–year–old. I also got to feed my hero complex, a long-standing tradition that continues even today in a manner that I suspect would be of some psychiatric interest. It started with a cowboy costume, presumably because I asked for it but likely influenced much less by Clint Eastwood and much more by the release of <i>An American Tail: Fievel Goes West</i>. From there, it alternated between “Robin Hood” and “Musketeer” (each with relevant movie releases, the more observant of you might notice) until I hit high school.
Brouhaha Rhythm
The other day, I had the unique experience of trying to open a coconut for personal consumption. It began with a butter knife and misplaced optimism. It ended with three sharp cooking knives, a multitool saw blade, a claw hammer, multiple nails of varying sizes, and one still-unrefreshed columnist. Oh, and a lounge so covered in coconut entrails that it could probably have been used as a set for a tropical-plant remake of <i>The Silence of the Lambs</i>.
Brouhaha Rhythm
I watched <i>Kill Bill</i> (parts 1 and 2) the other night with a few of my friends, and as impossible as I would have thought it, Quentin Tarantino’s movies have gotten more “out there” since <i>Pulp Fiction</i>. Granted, my experience with Tarantino films is only about as much as most (and not nearly as much as I’d like), but I imagine it doesn’t take too long to at least begin to grasp his particular film style. I’d wager that Tim Burton is the only director with a more distinctive stamp than Tarantino’s. The specifics are a little fuzzy, but I think if I were to draw a Venn Diagram with circles labeled “lack of color,” “Johnny Depp,” and “Helena Bonham Carter,” the intersections of two or more circles would get me pretty close.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Depending on who you ask, reactions to the idea of talking during a movie tend to be mixed. Some people feel like it’s perfectly fine, others feel there should be a special level of hell for violators of the “Silence is Golden” theatre policies. Some people don’t mind so long as what’s being said is funny or subtle, and some people prefer watching movies at home for the exact reason that they’re at greater liberty to speak/eat loud snacks/go to the bathroom, among other things. Ask me sometime about my idea of splitting movie theaters into “making out” and “non-making out” sections so that the lip aficionados don’t interfere with the film aficionados, and vice versa.
THEATER REVIEW Make Way for Hybrid Villains!
The MIT Musical Theatre Guild’s production of <i>Bat Boy: The Musical</i> (story and book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming, music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe) is briefly summarized as “Bat Boy’s search for love and acceptance,” which, though true, doesn’t quite capture the depth of the show’s… quirkiness. With a plotline that could be considered odd even by musical standards, <i>Bat Boy</i> is about neither a young Bruce Wayne nor the baseball equivalent of a roadie, although one could argue that it has elements in common with the former.
I’ve Got Brouhaha Rhythm
I like going to plays and theatre shows. It makes me feel cultured, the same way that going to movies makes me feel social and going to wild parties makes me feel sullied and vulnerable. I’ve always had an appreciation for the theatre, if only because it’s one of the most genuine forms of narrative entertainment out there. No CGI, no take two, no lip-syncing. There’s a great deal of appeal in the knowledge that each performance is unique, that the performers are walking and/or doing their high-kicks on a tightrope without the safety net of an editing room or stunt double.
Brouhaha Rhythm
I like toothpicks. I think people underestimate the usefulness of toothpicks in everyday situations. They’re useful for opening stubborn plastic packaging, marking one’s place in books, and attending to one’s fingernails in the absence of a proper manicure kit. And, of course, for picking teeth in scenarios where digging at your molars with your pinky nail and flossing with your own hair aren’t socially prudent.
Brouhaha Rhythm
It seems to me that most of our generation agrees that child and pre-teen television programming these days just isn’t as good as it used to be. If that strikes you as a random topic to be writing about, it probably is, but ask around and I suspect you’ll find awareness of it to be more widespread than one might suspect. The quality has simply gone down.
No Soup For You!
I can’t be the only one who’s noticed the absence of the formerly-famous clam chowder that used to be served in on-campus eateries every Friday. I can’t be the only one who came back from winter break aching for some proper clam chowder only to find that it’s nowhere to be found on campus. So where has it gone?
Brouhaha Rhythm
I’m going to miss spring break. I realize that’s true for all but the most masochistic among us, but after such a long and lustrous on-campus vacation, telling myself to return to the academic schedule is like asking Robinson Crusoe to vacation in the Bahamas. He’ll do it, but don’t expect him to leap for joy at the opportunity. Especially not after he’s had a week to get used to sitting at home eating processed snack foods and leftover pizza in front of a perpetual YouTube header.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Those of you who know me particularly well know that I was born and raised in suburbs just about all of my life. Consequently, my time here at MIT is my first time living in a major metropolitan area for any extended period of time. Bearing that in mind, I have to say, it’s been an interesting experience. Boston and Cambridge may not be quite so urban as Los Angeles or Coruscant (we can see the Boston sky), but I’m working my way up to the full-fledged city experience.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Forget all that nonsense about the Ringling Bros. — Campus Preview Weekend is officially the ‘Greatest Show on Earth,’ and I mean that in a very good way. I walked out of the Infinite Corridor (which I overheard referred to as “the Really Long Corridor”) onto Massachusetts Avenue Thursday afternoon and received something of a shock — MIT campus central looking like the college brochures I received in the mail oh so long ago. The benches in front of the Student Center were filled in spite of the singular aroma of fresh mulch, and Kresge Oval was alive with flying Frisbees. It’s virtually never like this during the semester — the people frolicking about couldn’t all be admitted pre-freshmen. What is it about CPW that gets us out of our rooms and into the sunlight?
Brouhaha Rhythm
It’s about the time of year that the sound of a “cough, cough” may mean more than an incoming innuendo. In spite of the abundant medical resources here on campus, sometimes one simply cannot help getting sick. The extended, close-quarters communal experience of college, by my reckoning, constitutes a trial-by-fire for the human immune system. As with other adversities, the inevitable rampant pestilence requires longer to adjust for some than for others. I mention this because I’m sure that neither I nor anyone else who has managed to dodge the illness bullet this far into the winter wishes to get sick now, so in the interests of self-preservation, I offer some at-home measures for avoiding disease like the plague. Or, you know, diseases such as the plague.
Brouhaha Rhythm
People have declared for ages that, for a man to be a proper boyfriend, he has to be willing to watch an occasional chick flick with his significant other from time to time. As a point of policy, I’ve responded by proclaiming how wonderful it is to be dating a woman who doesn’t even like chick flicks, thereby negating the cookie-cutter advice. Yet I’ve recently come to the horrifying realization that I may be gravitating more towards the genre than I thought I would.
Brouhaha Rhythm
You’d think it would be redundant to write an article for MIT students about the effects of stress, yet here I am. I suppose I just can’t help inflicting my thoughts on all of you — sorry about that. As it happens, stress is much like physical illness, in that it can manifest itself in physiological symptoms like muscular tics and discomfort, which is why over the next few weeks, you’ll be seeing MIT undergraduates all over campus twitching and jerking like they were inventing a new dance style. In my particular case, my abdominal muscles keep contracting involuntarily, so on the bright side, my core should be a good bit stronger by the time finals are over. As a point of additional irony, other symptoms of stress include memory problems and insomnia, which cause our already stressed bodies to put on quite a dance. The obvious solution to stress is to relax, but when there are only so many hours between now and crunch time, that solution becomes less and less of a viable option.
Brouhaha Rhythm
It’s hard having a significant other at a distant school. Maybe not as hard as, say, upgrading your computer to dual-boot BSD, but challenging all the same. Being an ickle freshman with no independent cash flow and a consistent homework load sort of precludes the possibility of regular travel for the time being, and our vacations don’t seem to line up properly, rather like Red Leader’s proton torpedoes. (Case in point: her spring break was three weeks before ours. Curse you, Massachusetts weather that’s only hovering above freezing, even after the vernal equinox!) I continue to be thankful that MIT is so well and fully wired that staying in contact in the electronic age is especially simple here. After all, that’s what the Internet is for, right? Sending enough Facebook music dedications to fill dozens of mix tapes? I’ve actually been several blocks up Mass. Ave. and wondered where the nearest Athena station was, but that’s for another article to address. My comedy well is only so deep, and I need to keep a good tab on what few funny subjects I can manage to conjure.
Brouhaha Rhythm
On the long and not-so-distinguished list of things that we do even though we know we shouldn’t, daydreaming is bound to be in the top ten. Daydreams, also known as longings, fantasies, or delusions (depending on the subject matter), serve as a way of withdrawing from the world around us. We daydream because we’re uncomfortable, or because we’re bored, or because we think that the person sitting in the next row in math class is attractive enough to merit additional mental attention.
Brouhaha Rhythms
Decorating my dorm room poses a peculiar problem. On the one hand, I don’t trust myself to nail anything to the wall that won’t bleed. On the other, the surfaces in my dorm, for some cosmic reason, are incompatible with duct tape and render it completely unsticky — which, if what you’re trying to hang is a) above your head, and b) heavy, is bad.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Ah, it’s good to be home. My sibling is toiling away at high school and my classmates are trudging 15 miles uphill both ways through the less-than-tropical climate of winter in Cambridge. Meanwhile, I’m warming my toes in luxurious Virginia. Sure, it’s not sunny California or Hawaii, but it’s where the heart is, no doubt about it.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Boy, when people sing about a winter wonderland around here, they ain’t kidding. I’d wager that with the first major snowfall of the year comes an increasingly enthusiastic populace with ideas aplenty as to what to do with it. The fact that many here are from toastier climes and may be unfamiliar with some key properties of snow (such as its effectiveness in projectiles) only adds to the potential for hijinks.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Many people at MIT are nerdier than most, and some have and continue to spend hours at a time playing video games instead of talking to anything with a pulse. So, it’s self-explanatory that social skills, at least among us freshmen, may be a smidgen underdeveloped. As impressive as our LANs are, we are not, by and large, a party school. By that, I mean that when people hear “MIT,” they generally don’t think of us as the “Planet of the Witty, Friendly, and Appropriately Hygienic Students” so much as they do the “Planet of the Slide-Ruling Apes.” Tragic, no?
Brouhaha Rhythm
Paranoia can be very unattractive. I say this as one who once watched “Survivorman” to prepare for a trip to a mountain resort, worries about incoming meteorites when stargazing, and brings rope to the circus to fashion into a makeshift whip in case something furry with sharp, pointy teeth breaks loose. But this time, I’m sure I’m on to something. Don’t look now, but I think the powers that be — the administration — are out to sabotage my grades.
Brouhaha Rhythm
You cannot begin to imagine how thrilled I was to find that multiple thrift stores exist within half a mile of my dormitory. You see, my mother is an expert bargain hunter and my dad loves to buy shiny electronic doodads. (With a Radio Shack just up Massachusetts Ave. and a Best Buy down it, I suspect I’m poised to follow in his footsteps.)
Brouhaha Rhythm
There’s nothing like the lack of supervision, combined with a healthy workload, to help me realize how I work best. I’ve already taken great joy in flouting virtually every study habit I’ve ever been told about, like not listening to music with lyrics, or working at my desk instead of on the dinner table (although due to a lack of adequate cash flow for furniture, the two are the same as often as not). When better than college to twiddle with different ways to tool in search of the optimal learning method?
Brouhaha Rhythm
Once upon a time, I had no problem whatsoever getting up at 5 or 6 in the morning before heading to school. Obviously, I generally didn’t get much in the way of rest that way, but that was during a time when I would prefer being able to eat my Lucky Charms without having to rush out the door. Plus, I also got the chance to see some very lovely sunrises.
Brouhaha Rhythm
The other day, I encountered a tour passing the Student Center. The tour group, as near as I could tell, consisted largely of wide-eyed parents and nonplussed teenagers apparently unimpressed with the Infinite Corridor (I guess they’d never seen anything infinite before and were still recovering from the shock). At any rate, the parents seemed enthused about exploring campus, and, after passing a group of sorority members, the more hormonal of the male high school prospects seemed to perk up as well.
Drunk With Culture
MIT has one of the most notoriously rich campus cultures in the ’verse. I still have a photo from Campus Preview Weekend of a Ghostbuster standing at the Massachusetts Ave. crosswalk as proof of the fact. The unfortunate side effect? An onslaught of incoming freshmen who are under the impression that the MIT of lore and the MIT of daily life are one and the same.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Somewhere out there, the culinary gods are weeping. As someone who would probably make a better meal by being cooked than by cooking, I dare say I have been less than vigilant regarding my nutritional needs. Freezer-burned waffles, Gatorade, and a granola bar? Most important meal of the day. Cheese crackers and ginger ale? Dinner, third course. (For anyone who’s curious, courses one and two were a red gummy bear and orange gummy bear, respectively.) Since I don’t have the necessary patience for in-dorm agriculture, and the only game to be hunted around campus are squirrels and mysteriously human-like six-foot beavers, it appears I will have to start preparing my own food before my cash flow gets dammed.